


Death, the Woman

by MiriamKenneath



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, Genderswapped Hades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:57:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14574468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/pseuds/MiriamKenneath
Summary: Death was a woman. Everyone knew that.





	Death, the Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basketofnovas (slashmarks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/gifts).



_La morte._

Death was a woman. Everyone knew that.

To some people, to those who feared Death, she appeared as a hideous old crone, hunchbacked and ridden with disease. Her breath was the foulest of graveyard stenches; her hair was wispy, thin, and mostly gone; her flesh was melting from her bones like heated candle wax; and her skin was shedding itself in a flurry of dry, grey flakes. Her voice was the rodent’s squeak, the toad’s croak. When she came for you, you literally died from the terror of it.

To other people, however, to those who did not fear Death, who welcomed her, there was no woman more lovely. She was the eternal maiden, voluptuous and soft, skin like elephant ivory, hair an unruly mass of thick, raven black ringlets. She smelled of musk, of the most fertile dark earth; her raiment was tailored from the finest silk and velvet and dripped with gems and precious gold and platinum. Her voice was a sonorous alto, like a clarinet or a cello, and when she called your name, you literally died of the ecstasy of it.

She had met Death once before. She’d been sprawled out, tangled in the sheets of her childhood bed. Too many pills. She’d taken too many pills, and when Death came, it was with a gentle smile and a lover’s searing touch between her legs.

But Death can be held back, at least for a time. Ceres had that power if anyone did, and if she had her druthers, she would not allow her daughter to know Death.

Never. No, not ever.

 

Prosperina. It was the name her mother gave her, and it was meant as an exhortation – to be bountiful and prosper. Her mother wanted grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, enough to cover the whole of the surface of the earth with their blessed fields of wheat, barley, rye, rice, and maize.

‘We shall find a good man for you to wed soon, Prosperina’, said her mother, ‘a man who will sow your womb with his seed as a farmer sows his fields in springtime’.

She, however, preferred her estranged father’s name for her: Libera. It meant freedom. It meant that she could not be bound by her mother’s dreadful ambitions for her fruitful marital union…no, that she _would not_ be bound by them.

She’d fallen in love with Death on that night of too many pills, you see. It hadn’t been intentional, that first meeting, and it had been all to brief. A heart-stopping instant. Yet she ached – ached! – with desire, with yearning, to see Death again. And more – she yearned to know the sweetness of Death’s true embrace. She wasn’t afraid; she had no reason to be afraid. She possessed the courage of her youth; she might as well be immortal.

In the olden days, it was said, a woman who was taken against her will and deflowered was forced to marry her abuser. As a small child, these tales had always sounded horrific to Libera, a fate worse than death for the poor woman so cruelly afflicted by fate. As she grew into womanhood, though, she realised that, actually, sometimes the only way to be with one’s true love was to be ‘kidnapped’. Besides, she _preferred_ Death over fate anyway.

And so, Libera hatched a plan.

 

Her mother thought she’d taken away all of Libera’s pills, but she hadn’t. She’d missed the ones underneath the loose floorboard directly beneath the foot of her bed.

The only question remaining was _when._

Her mother always slept most soundly in winter, and when she slept, she did not wish to be disturbed. So, in the end, Libera chose to summon Death on the longest night of the year, and when Death came for her this time, she was certain, it would be for forever.

They couldn’t wait. There was no need to wait. Indeed, they’d begun making love even while Death carried her down, down, down, into the depths beneath the world. Lips full and soft and fragrant, tongue teasing, crisp pubic hair tangling as they pushed into each other, that perfect centre of Libera’s pleasure swollen, unhooded, craving touch. And touched it was, by its mate, equal in size, exquisite, like velvet, until the need was too great and they were rocking into each other’s thighs, panting, perspiring, gushing slick fluids, and flying, flying, flying with the incandescent fire of orgasm, screaming their devotion…

…and tumbling back down into the luxurious bower of Death’s own magnificent, expansive, richly appointed bed.

‘Mine’, Death whispered into Libera’s ear. ‘Mine forever. I’m never letting you go’.

Libera wept tears of joy at those words.

Then, they began again. Death sucked livid bruises in purple, blue, yellow, and green, like poisonous flowers, onto her neck, and when she climaxed, Libera’s fingernails raked red furrows down the white skin of Death’s back.

 

It couldn’t last. Of course it couldn’t.

Not even after being carried off, not even after being deflowered. Not even after supping from the fruits of Death’s deathless garden.

Her mother would have her back, and not even the greatest of the Gods would defy her will. Death may have marked her in the throes of their passion, but it didn’t matter. What Libera wanted didn’t matter. Not when Ceres wanted something and set her mind to it.

They divided her in half. Equality, they said. It’s only fair, they said.

No, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. But it would have to do.

So.

In summer, each and every summer, she is Prosperina, rising up from under the ground, awakened by the sun, born anew. Her mother welcomes her into a maternal embrace, and she is like a little girl again, innocent, pure, flowers woven into her hair. She will never bear the offspring her mother desired of her womb, but her mother was always bountiful enough for the two of them, and Prosperina is a good little helper-daughter, so good that sometimes her mother forgets that Prosperina will never be a mother herself.

In winter, though, each and every winter, on the longest night of the year, Death returns for her, and she becomes Libera once more. The flowers are torn from her hair, like the cries of endless pleasure are torn from her lips.

In the sweet embrace of Death, she is truly free.

 

* * *

_**-fin-** _


End file.
